By: Mike Brescia
Chapter 1 of 'Today Is Your Day To Win.'
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From The Bench To The Playing Field
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Today's Empowering Quote
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"I have brought myself by long meditation to the
conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must
accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which
will stake even existence upon its fulfillment."
-Benjamin Disraeli
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Today's Empowering Question
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"What am I willing to give up in order to reach my
objective?"
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Today's Fast Session
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Since I've had so many requests about how I went from a
real bum to being able to write to tens of thousands of
friends all over the world, here's the story. It's...
interesting.
Up until early 1987 I regularly used to beg the gods for
an answer to the question of why I couldn't get myself to
do what I needed to do to get my simple goals met. Why was
I so lazy and miserable? I was just... a bum.
I got fired from countless jobs. I flunked out of
college. And then got fired some more.
Finally, after reading some very popular books on selling
and motivation over and over...
...I continued to fail, not making one single solitary
thin dime in my commissioned sales job for close to TWO
more years. If it weren't for friends and then my trusty
Ford Econoline van, I literally would've been living "on"
the street.
One day, during this period, while sitting in my van, a
man walked up and started talking to me. He was brilliant.
He went on to tell the story of when he, as an announcer,
covered the World Series back in the late 60's. He had all
the names; he knew stats like it was yesterday. His voice
was clearly that of a broadcaster. But the thing that was
most incredible was...
...He was pushing a shopping cart, which carried all his
earthly possessions.
He was homeless, too. Living on the street. I couldn't
believe it.
He told me that he just got sick of the daily challenges.
One problem after another. He literally became unable to
function in any capacity. Very quickly he had lost
everything. At the end, it was by choice.
Sadly, I could identify with THIS guy more than anyone I
had met in a while. I was very low, but fortunately, I
hadn't quite reached that level...
...Yet.
I did want to get off the "street" and stop being a bum.
So I found this great bookstore around Hermosa Beach that
had comfy chairs, and I started spending a lot of time
there. Ultimately, I had gotten very familiar with a
number of self-help change methods, including NLP, self-
talk and Accelerated Learning techniques. Like I said, I
had a lot of time on my hands.
I soon came back to Upstate New York, got a menial job and
started to create my own Superlearning tapes with three
cheap, borrowed tape players. Only instead of learning a
language or factual data at lightning speeds, I figured I'd
teach myself new attitudes and instruct myself to do things
that sent tremors of fear through me... actions that could
change me from a loser to someone I'd be proud to be.
So from every sales, biography, motivation, NLP and don't
worry, be happy book I could find, I pulled out all the
lessons, the beliefs and the attitudes of life's top
performers. I turned them into self-instructions, and
recorded them onto tapes with very specific baroque music
passages playing in the background.
It was quite a setup. I was desperate and willing to do
anything. I couldn't be getting fired more from any more
$5.00 an hour jobs.
In what seemed like just a few days, I began to feel
differences. In my new job, I started working lots of
hours putting coin-operated TVs together and installing
them. Soon, I was making telephone calls to prospective
customers, large travel plazas with big restaurants.
These early TV boxes were downright ugly, but I was able
to convince the presidents of nearly every one of these
huge corporations to let us tear up their nice dining rooms
to put these things in. It was wild. I mean, I just got
in a frenzy of conviction before each call.
The more I listened to my tapes while I slept, the more
fanatical I got about reading and learning. Among my
recorded self-instructions were ones that told me I loved
learning and that I was the greatest salesman in the world.
Ha!! I put in that the more I succeeded, the more success
I wanted. Talk about a vicious cycle, huh?
Well, soon I had exhausted the company's inventory of
TV's. And since the revenue each one made wasn't that
high, the company had no money to buy the parts to build
hundreds more. Even though it proved to be a dead end job,
it felt good not being fired.
So I left to start selling hearing instruments. I just
got scary good. In an industry where 20-25% closing ratios
were typical, I was selling 95%. In just about 4 months,
that self-instruction about being the greatest salesman in
the world was eerily coming true... at least in that
industry. Soon I was going seven days a week. Missing a
sale was just not an option.
I continued to listen to my tapes and develop new ones.
Considering where I came from to where I was now, I figured
that anything was possible. I researched and made tapes
for everything from diet practices to anxiety. I had gone
from being scared of everything to feeling like I couldn't
fail.
I used to use double negatives when I spoke. "I didn't do
nothing" was a famous line. This drove people around me
crazy. So I researched communication and public speaking
and made an accelerated success tape.
Whenever I wanted to eliminate a block, get good at
something, or feel better about myself, I looked for the
top professionals, researched their findings, uncovered
lots of conflicting data, found what made sense and made a
tape in the accelerated learning format.
I've found there wasn't anything that I couldn't literally
install into or rip out of my mind. And with the right
thoughts and instructions, you could create an endless loop
of success, each good outcome fueling in you the desire to
keep the positive change and to improve even more.
In short, that's the early part of the story that leads me
to today, getting to talk to you.
I hope this answered a few questions and inspired you to
believe that no matter what you're going through right now,
you are truly magnificent. All you have to do is release
your blocks and embrace your unlimited potential. There's
enormous power within you. It might be buried, but it's
there.
I know, I know. If that seems a little beyond what your
belief system currently allows you to accept, I understand.
That's OK. Keep reading and repeating your self
instructions.
You'll become a believer soon enough.
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Today's Winning Beliefs
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-- Every success I achieve fuels in me the desire for more
-- I can achieve anything that I can imagine
-- I have the ability to visualize every aspect of my
success
-- My ability is greater than any challenge I could face
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